In order to get its Mezzanine software up and dancing, Bellevue, Washington-based Saros Corp has announced a marketing and technology development programme targeted at OEM customers. Companies involved in server hardware, databases, vertical application development and networking can now take advantage of a broad range of services designed to help the OEM customer to integrate the Saros Mezzanine network file management facilities with their hardware and software products. The Mezzanine product has already proved to be no wallflower, since, in a contract estimated to be worth up to $70m, it forms the core technology for NCR’s Co-operation software (CI No 1,529). The file management facilities of Co-operation are based on an embedded and extended version of Saros’ Mezzanine and form the basis for the information storage manager function of Co-operation. Saros describes Mezzanine as an open client-server development environment for building distributed network applications that use unstructured data. The information processed by such applications is not in the traditional record-oriented format on which relational databases rely; rather it lies with object formats such as scanned images, text files or engineering drawings. Studiously avoiding references to object-oriented technology, though that is in essence what it is, Saros says that programmers can integrate applications directly to Mezzanine whether the application runs in an MS-DOS, Windows or OS/2 client environment. OEM customers can use the Mezzanine network engine in a number of different ways: it can be used as a foundation for network applications where it would be particularly appropriate for applications such as office automation, document management and image processing. Mezzanine is designed as an object manager and handles all files ac objects, consequently, it has potential as a network object manager incorporating objects such as network resources, databases or messages. Saros also suggests that vendors of network operating systems could easily implement Mezzanine as the primary file system within their operating system, thereby providing advanced file management and name services. The beauty of the product is that it is a metatool enabling OEM customers to enhance their products to address user demands for file management and object management. As part of the OEM deal, Saros will provide a lot of support, education and consultancy.
